Windows Search IT Guides

Updated: June 20, 2008

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

Windows® Search, formerly Windows Desktop Search, is the search technology that lets users quickly find almost anything on their computers. The search engine is a system service that works in the background to maintain its index. When first installed, it scans selected locations to build the initial index. After that, it uses system or application notifications to index new or changed content. When items are deleted, the corresponding entries in the index are also deleted.

Windows Search (WS) is optimized so that enterprise information technology (IT) managers can easily deploy and manage the installation of WS across all of the users and computers in their organizations. It is simple to integrate WS with enterprise resources or other enterprise search solutions such as Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server (MOSS) or Microsoft® Windows SharePoint® Services (WSS). The technology is designed to be secure, and users can only see content to which they have access. In addition, WS is designed to have minimal impact on network performance.

Windows Search indexes the content of your computer and stores the index file on that computer. No information about your searches or the files on your computer is sent to or collected by Microsoft to enable search on your computer.